Unfinished Pine Flooring

When you hear the term unfinished, do you imagine something rough or course? What if we told you that our unfinished Southern Yellow Pine flooring and Caribbean Heart Pine flooring arrive “barefoot ready”? No kidding, in fact we have customers that do not sand, just topcoat and done. Barefoot ready does not mean you should slide across them like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, they are real and could have a flaw, but you get the point.

What about the ‘tongue and groove’ on our unfinished pine floors? Part of what we do involves shipping our floors to all 50 states, problems at installation would kill our business. Bayou Rustic unfinished Southern Pine,  New Heart Pine and Clear Pine floors are all KILN dried, tongue and groove with relief grooves for stability. Furthermore, our floors are milled to order which means all your boards are milled on the same day, from the same timber which brings continuity and consistency.

Why buy unfinished Southern Pine? Quality, length of the boards and price are the three reasons to buy unfinished pine from Bayou Rustic. But if you ask an installer the answer is choice. The ability to customize the finish, product, and style. Site finishing your floor gives it an authenticity no factory can provide. You cannot create texture and depth on a machine, it takes a hand (site) finished floor. While unfinished hardwoods take more effort, the investment pays off with the final product.

Southern Pine, aka Southern Yellow Pine is not a species but rather a geographic description. In reality the term covers a dozen species, including white pine. The word yellow indicates the ‘hard’ pine species of Southern Pine, as opposed to white or red (ponderosa) pine. Why is this important? We want to explain that all pine is not created equal, not even close when measuring durability or hardness.

Bayou Rustic sells two basic versions of Southern Yellow Pine, rustic and clear. Rustic has many names including Knotty Pine, Character Southern Pine, #2 Grade none of which mean much without more information. Sometimes rustic means rough, at Bayou it simply indicates knots and the #2 does not mean defects either. All of our floors are milled using precision equipment after going through a ‘double kiln’ process, they are planned smooth and barefoot ready, far from rough.

‘New’ Heart Pine, it is not new at all when compared to 95% of Southern Pine harvested every year. New simply differentiates the floor from Antique, Reclaimed and Old Growth Heart Pine. New Heart Pine floors require a 50% Southern Pine, boards must have a minimum of 50% heart content visible on face. Bayou Rustic New Heart Pine has 50%-85% heartwood; boards with less than 50% heart content on the face, get a #2 (character/rustic/knotty). To be clear, the #2 has nothing to do with defects, just lacks the minimum 50% heartwood. New Heart Pine will darken over time as time creates patina. So, one day you refinish your New Heart Pine, which now has the patina of reclaimed boards. It gets better the second time around, better with age.

All floors are 3/4 solid, with 85% and up heartwood, unfinished tongue, and groove on all four sides, aka end matched. Bundled 2-12′ with average lengths 6′ for prime and 7′ rustic grade. Widths available; 3 1/4, 5, 7, and 9″ in prime or rustic subject to availability. Rustic grade Caribbean Heart Pine has knots, character with red to dark brown colors. Prime grade contains tiny pin knots, if any. The colors are more uniform as the contain less sap than the rustic grads but both grades contain the same percentage of heartwood. What is Caribbean Heart Pine, by grade prime and Rustic. In a few words, the type of floor that creates envy, intended or otherwise. Every single person that comes into your home will complement the floor while having no idea what type of pine they are admiring.